Black Templar
by ryanb987
Summary: Follows a Guardsman during the final moments before a Tyranid attack


_We are the bane of xenos. We are the purgers of heresy. We are the Sons of Dorn, and the upholders of faith. We are the Black Templars, and we will show no pity, no fear and no remorse._

Prologue

The heat was unbearable. Beneath layers of flak armour and uniform, Favos Aren could feel sweat drip from every pore.

The red sun beat down on the 71st Ankth's unsheltered positions, scorching the sand from beyond the yellow sky. No wind or breeze blew through the Sar, just the calm stillness of the salt plains.

Miles away, he could see a dust cloud rising in the sky, and the indistinct reptillian forms just ahead of it. Days of waiting, anticipating, fearing the worst, and now they were finally coming.

For weeks, spore clouds had choked the air with black smog and noxious fumes. They landed into the deserts and plains, touching down with all the grace of falling comets. From the bellies of their oversized vessels, the monsters poured forth in their untold millions, swarming over the surface of Ankth in an endless tide.

Aren held the warm grip of his las-gun and waited. Four thousand men were stationed on the Sar line. Infantry, supported by a full company of armour and support vehicles, but they all knew that it wasn't going to be enough.

The dust wall grew larger, and the charging enemy drew closer. It wouldn't be long now. Aren knew that they were all going to die. His superiors had promised that reinforcements were on the way, typical lies, but even if that were true, it wouldn't be soon enough, at least not for Favos Aren and the rest of the 71st Ankth.

From so great a distance, he couldn't draw a bead, but sighted them with his scope anyways. Massive green and purple bodies, corded with overgrown muscle and covered in spines of chitin and bone.

Their mouths were twisted in perpetual, insectoid grins, upturned and tusks jutting viciously from their oversized jaws and enormous fangs hanging over their chins. Unlike the exhausted guardsmen, the heat only seemed to drive them onwards, pushing their already enraged minds into a greater frenzy.

They were Tyranids, consumers of the galaxy. The orbital defences had already succumbed to the advance of their enormous hive ships, and soon the planet below would as well. Every living plant and animal, consumed to feed the endless hunger of the swarm.

It would be just minutes before they reached the line. Already, Aren could smell their foetid smell, like rotting vegetation. He had caught whiffs of it on the air, now and again, but now it pervaded his senses. It was all he could smell, even the air seemed to have taken on a pollinated yellow hue.

For what felt like the hundredth time he checked the las-gun's energy cell, he ensured that he had extra ammunition, that his armour was properly adjusted, and a dozen other pre-battle checks designed to ease his mind.

They didn't help.

The ground trembled as Leman Russ battle tanks fired their main guns, launching explosive shells across the expanse and into the closely packed ranks of alien. The concussive force felt like some insane drummer was pounding the landscape, sending vibrations through the soil and rock for miles in every direction.

Dozens died with every shot, hundreds with every volley. Any normal force should have broken under the weight of bombardment, the massive casualties inflicted with every passing second, but still, the aliens charged onwards, heedless of their fallen. The massive, clawed feet of their larger brethren simply trampled the maimed and dying. Shells burst just feet away from some of the largest, but they shrugged off the flame and shrapnel as a minor inconvenience.

An order passed down the line to ready rifles and take aim. As one, the 71st shouldered their las-guns and sighted the approaching alien horde. It seemed almost pitiful, Aren thought, that when tanks and artillery had so little effect, that his tiny las-gun would be able to do anything to slow the momentum of the approaching enemy.

At best, he might kill one or two, but once the fighting reached close quarters, once they were in the thick of it...

They had all seen the aftermath of Tyranid attacks on outlying farmsteads, the half eaten bodies and torn limbs, the blood soaked rooms. Quite simply, once the enemy reached hacking distance, the guardsmen would collapse. Aren's tiny bayonet would be of no more use than a thumbtack against the smaller horrors, let alone the largest.

Not for the first time, Aren considered slipping away. Fleeing the line and escaping into the desert. But he knew better than that. The Tyranids would destroy this planet, just as they had every other planet in the sub-sector. In months, Ankth would be robbed of its forests, its population and eventually its atmosphere. Favos Aren knew that he was going to die on this planet, it was just a question of when.

The opening volleys of las fire were unleashed on the Tyranid horde. Four thousand concentrated beams of red light, flashing into the bodies of the enemy, decimating their front ranks, but doing little to stop, or even slow, the overall press of bodies.

Aren waited for two seconds as his weapon's power cell cycled back to full energy and he fired again, in perfect concert with the thousands of other troopers.

Again the aliens fell, and again the troopers fired. The tanks spooled their heavy bolters, awaiting and the auto canon emplacements started lobbing high explosive rounds downfield.

More and more aliens fell as the Guardsmen unleashed the full fury of their arsenal. Thousands died in a heartbeat, but in an army of billions, such numbers mattered little.

Aren pulled the trigger and watched a final beam of light slice into the sloping plates of a Tyranid beast, burning through its insides with molten power.

Over vox amplifiers, he could hear Father Askos singing a battle hymn. A commissar drew his sword and ignited the power field, overpowering the smell of rot with that of ozone, just for an instant.

Aren could feel the fright in his limbs, and the quiver in his hands. His heart beat quickly, and despite the heat, a shiver of fear ran down his spine. His death at the tooth or claw of a xenos beast would come within minutes, but like every other trooper on the Sar line, he gritted his teeth, determined to meet it head on.


End file.
